The Pajama-boy Steelers came to Foxboro last night and beat themselves. Don’t let anyone tell you any different.
In the middle of a drive where every play netted the Steelers a first down or more they insert a trick play that cost them yards, and momentum. (Headsets or not they got that one in there, didn’t they?) A few more bone-head moves later and they missed a field-goal.
Rinse, lather, repeat.
The Patriots didn’t play great but they won because they were better prepared. They were better coached. More disciplined. They played smarter football on both sides of the ball, took advantage of opportunities, and recovered quickly from set-backs.
They did it with a questionable secondary and green corners. They did it with three rookies on the offensive line. They did it with a quarterback who spent the off-season and all of camp being dragged through a legal process over an NFL witchhunt for ball inflation issues whose remedy prevented their opponents from scoring for an entire half while they were steamrolled with ‘properly inflated balls.”
Narrative or not the Steelers gave the win away.
They missed coverage, lacked situational awareness, demonstrated horrible clock management skills, and looked more like a pre-K girls field-hockey team off their meds than an NFL icon lead by a hall of fame caliber quarterback. Instead of charging hurdles and overcoming failures they repeated them, then implied some premeditated advantage by their opponents.
But that’s the new normal in the NFL when you get beat by the Patriots. It won’t be because you blew coverage or let time run down. There will always be something else, like a legal shift of the defensive line – something you might see at High School game that sent Roethlisberger into a frenzy.
And sports media is there to help. The announcers were nothing short of retched little propagandists for the NFL’s new theme; ‘Strange things happen to teams who come to Foxboro.’
They lose. Often.
But there is nothing strange about that when your receiver’s foot is out of bounds in the end zone on a gimme touchdown pass, or special teams and a kicker who can’t get the ball between the uprights.
The Steelers lost because they played lousy football. Don’t let anyone tell you different.
